With the election coming up next Tuesday, I am going out on a limb and predict that the Democrats will win control of the House and the Republicans will still retain the control of the Senate by the slimmest of margins, ie one seat. You would think that with the situation in Iraq, the multiple scandals in Congress, the large deficit and poor approval ratings of the President as well as the Congress; that the party in control of Congress would get slammed. In reality, even though the Democrats will gain during this election it would not be as big of a defeat for the Republicans as you would imagine given the problems they have had in the past two years.

The truth is most Congressional seats are in safe districts. While most people believe that the government is doing a poor job, they have better feelings about their own Congressman. With all the pork that the incumbents bring back to their states, it is hard for challengers to unseat them. Add to the polarization between liberals and conservatives who would not vote for the other side even if their own candidate is poor, many seats are safe for both sides. Even the seat vacated by Duke Cunningham in San Diego went back to a Republican after he resigned because of bribes. Even though all 435 seats in the House are up for reelection, less than 10% are competitive. This makes it difficult for the minority party to win back control. In the Senate it is even more difficult because only one third of the seats are up for reelection every two years. It looks like the best the Democrats can hope for is that they end up having to win two out of three between the seats in Missouri, Virginia and Tennessee to get the six turnovers they need to get control of the senate. I don't think they can get two out those three.

If the two houses are split we will have more logjam in Congress. Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker and with her ultra-left credentials, there will be no agreements between the two sides. In the long run it will help the Republicans because the Democrats will have to share more of the blame for the lack of ability of Congress to get anything done. Losing the House will also force the Republicans to work harder for 2008. Basically the Democrats have no good ideas of their own, they are just gaining because the Republican scandals and incompetence of th Bush administration in the Iraq war. Unfortunately I don't see more centrist politicians with common sense taking control of the government no matter which side wins.

Usually I find it refreshing for an immigrant to go into politics. Often he or she brings in different perspectives. It also shows the working of our melting pot. But recent events in Orange County makes me shake my head.

Tan Nguyen is a Vietnamese immigrant who is running for congress in a heavily Hispanic district against incumbent Loretta Sanchez. I don't know why he is running in the first place as he had no chance of winning. Then he decided to mail out a letter to people with Hispanic surnames telling them in Spanish that it is illegal to vote if you are an immigrant and that you can get arrested. The clusmsiness of this attempt to win an election is almost hilarious. It is at least unethical to intimidate people but for an immigrant to try to do that to fellow immigrants is deplorable. I am sure he would be upset if someone does the same thing to the Vietnamese community. He is also an idiot because there was no way he was going to get away with this stupid scheme. I have no idea why he thought he would not be caught.

Of course Nguyen is not the only idiot. Immediately after this came to light people were calling this a hate crime. And these were the Republicans, Nguyen's own party. Angelides, who has no chance of winning the governor's race, goes ballistic and says this is the way the Republican operates. The state attorney general is investigating and officers have searched Nguyen's home and took his computer. While Nguyen's action cannot be defended, this is not the KKK at work here. It is not a sure thing that a crime is committed as I don't see victims here. For illegal immigrants, they shouldn't be voting anyway. And if you are a citizen, why would you be frightened by this nonsense anyway? Having studied for your citizen exam, you would know that you are entitled to vote, so why would you be intimidated?

Yes, Nguyen is a fool and should never hold political office. But all those people who are making a big deal out of it are just as foolish. As the midterm election draws closer there are a lot more important things to debate. This is just about an unethical person doing a foolish thing. Unfortunately it is an embarrassing setback for immigrants trying to enter the politcal mainstream. Well, on second thought may be Nguyen has learned too well from the political mainstream!

Looks like North Korea may be testing a second nuclear device soon. This would be no surprise considering all signs point to a less than overwhelming sucessful first attempt. Even such a feeble effort prompted angry reaction from the U.S. and Japan. This was exactly what Kim wanted. This is an ego maniac who wants attention from the world powers. Of course we already believed that Kim has several nuclear devices before this so why should we show any worry over this. Only the South Koreans should worry because they are so close and can be hit easily. Even Japan is too far for North Korea to hit accurately with the missles they have now. The U.S. is in no danger from this in the near future.

There is the argument that North Korea can sell its weapons to terrorists which can then be used against us by way of a dirty bomb. This is possible but not likely. As I said before, Kim is a secular dictator who wants to stay in power and live. He maybe crazy but he is not stupid. Going to bed will Muslim terrorists will mean death to him. The most likely place where terrorists can get nuclear material is still from the former USSR countries and Pakistan. Nothing has changed in these few weeks.

One problem that arise from North Korea thumbing its nose at the world is that Iran will be encouraged to continue its nuclear program. Bush made a terrible mistake by lumping Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the axis of evil and then invaded Iraq. Turns out as expected Hussein had no nuclear weapons and was taken out of power. North Korea has nuclear weapon for sure and there is nothing the U.S. can do about it. Bush had said the world will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea. But all Bush call for now is sanctions. There is no talk of invading North Korea. Iran sees this and figures that the best defense is offense and that having nuclear weapons maybe a deterrent against attack. Since nothing happened to India, Pakistan and now North Korea after they tested nuclear weapons, why wouldn't Iran pursue its program? There is no turning back now. Preemptive strikes and threats that cannot be back up will leave a more unstable world in the future.

Chalk up another public official in California we need to get rid of. Attorney General Bill Lockyer either has no common sense or is courting leftist votes for a run at governor a few year after Arnold defeats his incompetent Democratic challenger Angelides. Lockyer has filed a suit against the largest automobile manufacturers seeking money for environmental damage caused by tailpipe emissions. I think the only people who agree that this lawsuit has merit are the extreme environmentalists and the trial lawyers. I do believe that fossil fuels is a major cause of environmental damage. But to blame the automakers is like blaming McDonalds for causing you to get fat. Obviously, there are people who are actually suing McDonalds also. It is another example of people won't take responsibilities for their own actions but blame others. Nobody forces you to eat a hamburger and the automakers are not forcing anyone to buy a car. Certainly the popularity of gas guzzlers like suvs are what is driving Detroit to produce poor mileage autos. If we actully demand cars that get high mileage, those cars will be produced.

Automakers only produce the cars. If nobody drives them, the cars don't pollute. So it is not the automakers who foul up the environment but each 0f us. I think Lockyer does drive a car himself so he is also responsible for fouling the environment. It would make more sense to penalize the actual polluters, which is all of us, by increasing the taxes of gasoline as I have suggested before. (See blog dated 4/26/06) Of course that would be immensely unpopular and Lockyer would not be elected to office again. By trying to stick it to companies with deep pocket, Lockyer thinks that he will increase his popularity. Ultimately, it is us who pay for this foolishness. The state has already lost a nuisance suit against electric power plant operators but is appealing. All these nuisance lawsuits cause the taxpayers money and will result in no benefit to us. It will cause the automakers money to defend the suits and the expenses will be passed to consumers in higher prices for cars. If this lawsuit is somehow successful, I am going to sue the government for buying buses and actually run them.

Watched the show "Path to 9/11" on ABC last week. I guess a lot more people preferred to watch football instead of learning from the lessons of 9/11. The rating was way low compared to Sunday and Monday night football games. The show generated a lot of controversy because the Democrats felt that it was biased against them. Among the criticism was that it showed Sandy Berger and Madeline Albright making decisions that prevented the capture or killing of bin Laden before the Bush administration took over. I am maybe biased because I am a friend of the writer of the show but I thought it was fair for the most part. Whether Berger or Albright were the ones that made the mistakes or not, there is no question that mistakes were made during the Clinton administration. The film also showed people in the Bush administration in poor lights, including Condi Rice. If less mistakes were made by the Bush administration in this film, it was only because they were in power less time before 9/11 occurred. I don't think the film changed anyone's mind. As an independent I thought both administrations made mistakes that led to this tragedy. The film did not change my mind.

There are several lessons one can learn from this film:

1. It is not easy to play defense. You have to be right all the time while the terrorists only have to be right or lucky one time.

2. Fortunatly it is not that easy for the bad guys to pull off a big one. While they can commit a crime easy enough, to do something that will get world wide attention successfully is difficult. That is one reason there was 8 years between the 2 attacks on the WTC. The larger the project the more people are involved and the easier it is to be detected.

3. Of course while the bad guys are making mistakes we have to catch their mistakes. This was the main theme in the film. There were many times the terrorists left clues that should have been picked up. The most galling thing to me was that our law enforcement agencies would not pass information to each other and thus connecting the dots. The alarming thing is that even though this was stressed in the 9/11 commission report, a followup review at end of last year gave the government a D mark in fixing this area. This is incredible to me!

4. The film also showed the conditions of some third world country. The poverty of places like Pakistan, Yemen and Africa are breeding grounds for religious extremists and terrorism. It is a monumental if not impossible job but decreasing poverty will decrease terrorism.

5. The best defense against terrorism is not high technology or force. Terrorists were stopped by ordinary policeman or border agents because these heroes and heroines were alert and took their jobs seriously. The bomb maker Ramsi Yousef was captured because a courageous man in Pakistan, who despite hating the policies of the U.S., decided to come forward because he did not want innocent people die. So there are people out there who are willing to do the right thing but we must do our part and be sure our policies are fair and right.

These are some of the intersting points I got from the film. While one can argue that the film is biased against the Democrats, I don't think it portrayed the Democrats as badly as Michael Moore's film portrayed the Republicans. In any case, I don't think if the two administrations were reversed in order of controlling the White House, the result of 9/11 would have been much different. This is a wake up call to all of America, not just to any one party. I would suggest that if you have not watch it to rent it when it comes out on DVD. It is not great entertainment but it is a lot more educational than Monday Night Football.

Been away for awhile and have not been keeping up with what is happening in current events. While looking through Sports illustrated recently I came across a columan by Rick Reilly which I find interesting. Reilly wrote about a boy who had survived cancer and was playing on a little league baseball team. They were in the championship game with the tying and winning run on base in the last inning and the best hitter on the boy's team was up. The cancer survivor was the worst hitter on the team and he was to follow the best hitter. The manager on the other team decided to walk the best hitter. The boy then struck out to end the game. Reilly thought that was a lousy thing for the manager to do and that a strategy that is normally used in higher level of baseball should not be used here. He asked what the readers think and that they can vote on his website. I looked it up and the majority agreed with him and that it was a lousy thing for the manager to "pick on the poor kid". I couldn't disagree more.

If this league was meant to be non-competitve then they should not keep scores. They certainly should not have a championship game. When you have an outcome of winners and losers, 50% of the kids are going to be disappointed. If the manager had pitched to the best hitter and he knocks in two run then the manager would have failed his team. During that game, I am sure, many kids struck out or made an error and felt bad. This is part of playing the game and learning from adversity. The cancer survivor did cry after the game but a few days later he said he would practice harder so that the next time they would walk him and pitch to someone else. This is the spirit that would make our society better. We should not protect our kids from failures even if they are handicapped. When the boy signed up to play little league he must have wanted to be treated like everyone else. I don't think he would have liked to get intentional walks just so that he won't strike out. Compare to cancer winning a baseball championship doesn't seem all that important. Having survived cancer, I don't think this kid needs to be protected by the politically correct squad.

I feel bad for the manager who was villified for giving the intentional walk. The other manager said that he would not do the same thing in the same situation. But I find it curious that he would put his worst hitter after his best hitter. Did he make out his lineup card randomly or did he feel the other team would be too embarrassed to walk his best hitter with the cancer survivor up next? Anyways, life is never going to be fair and our society is better off if our children are taught to try to overcome their disadvantages rather than given a free pass. What do you think? Please write in a comment if you have an opinion.

Yesterday in the LA Times there was an article about Indian casinos in California. It talks about some tribes are prospering with revenues from casinos while other tribes are still poor because they are not allowed to open casinos. The rich tribes are trying to pass legislations with the endorsement of the governor to increase the number of casinos they can own and increase the number of slot machines in each casino. At the same time these rich tribes are paying off legislators to prevent the approval of new casinos being opened by poor tribes. So the tribes that were fortunate enough to be granted rights to casinos are now using their political clout to increase their empires while preventing poor tribes from getting the same opportunities they had.

First of all, there should not be more expansion of casinos in this state. Gambling has great addictive potential and we should discourage it. Of course, the government uses gambling for their own gain, regardless the possible harm to the public. Lotteries may enrich the coffers of the government but also lead to destruction of lives. The Indian casinos, like the reservations, are politically correct way for the government to address past wrongs that were done to Native Americans. I find it repulsive to allow a certain group to go into a business that is illegal for other people to operate. Are we going to let Blacks sell drugs and Latinoes run brothels? I think there should be better ways to help disadvantaged groups.

This is not about self-reliance. If it is, as the Indian gaming commercials insist, then the profits should be shared among all Native Americans in the state. But the rich tribes just want to keep the money to themselves. Their political clouts are growing each day with their profit. Soon they will be like the government employee unions and big businesses that are buying our politicians. Along with all the poker championship on sports channels and all the lotteries run by the government, gambling will become mainstream in our society if they are not already. The toll on our future generations will be enormous.

p.s. I would like to thank everyone who has written comments on my blog. I find them very insightful except those from my family and friends. If you don't agree with my view, please say so. You won't hurt my feelings. Besides, I know who you are and I will find you. Periodically, I will comment on your comments. Today, I would like to answer leaderoftommorrow's question about what do I think the U.S. would do if we are attacked like Israel was.

The short answer is the U.S. would do exactly what Israel did. I don't blame Israel for fighting back. I am not Gandhi and I think an eye for an eye is fair. Going into Afghanistan after 9-11 was the right thing to do. If LA is being hit by rockets from Mexico, I would want my government to counter-attack. But look at it from a different point of view. If a group of crazy Americans fire rockets into Mexico and the Mexicans attack San Diego, you would understand it, right? But if the Mexicans start bombing LA because Canada was sending arms through LA to the crazies in San Diego and your building got hit, what would you think? If you are a young kid in LA and your home was destroyed by the Mexican bombs, wouldn't you hate them? So will the kid in Beirut whose house was destroyed grow up to hate Israel.

I look at this from the perspective of the boy in Beirut because of experiences I had growing up in Hong Kong. As a young boy I understood the communists in China were bad guys. I also knew there were communist sympathizers in Hong Kong who were causing trouble. Despite this understanding, I hated the British whenever they overreacted against civilians when the communists caused trouble. Looking back, if the British had destroyed the building I lived in because a few communists were hiding there, I would probably grew up to be an insurgent against British colonial rule. After my family left Hong Kong for the U.S., the British treated the people of Hong Kong much better. As a result, Hong Kong became prosperous and actually had a higher per capita income than their colonial masters by the late 1980's. Obviously, there was no chance of any insurgency against the British because they had acted in a civilized manner.

The point is the boy in Beirut and I are not evil people. We are just ordinary people who could be persuaded to become terrorists. As a much older and hopefully wiser person, I know becoming a terrorist is not the answer, but the bad guys are trying to recruit young and impressionable people. They also know that the more Israel and the U.S. overreact, the easier it is for them to recruit. I don't have any good answers, but I believe that if we are the good guys, we have to act like we are the good guys. Ultimately the good guys will prevail.

Again, thanks for the comments, keep them coming.

It has been awhile since I last written anything. I was waiting to see what happens to the cease fire. So far not much has happened. Hezbollah is taking advantage of the cease fire to regroup and do some rebuilding among the populace and thus gain more support in the future. As I have said when this started, all Hezbollah has to do is survive and they win. As it turned out things went worse than I expected for the Israelis. I thought they will at least crippled Hezbollah and may kill some of their leaders, possibly Nasrallah. Even then I thought Hezbollah could rebuild given the anger directed at the Israelis for the destructions. I thought Israel would win the battles but become less safe later as a result of this. This and the number of innocent lives that would be lost caused me to say a cease fire should have been imposed by the U.S. and the UN after that first week. Unfortunately the battle dragged on for more than 4 weeks with many lives lost and now the Israelis and the U.S. are no better off than 4 weeks ago. In fact the ability of Hezbollah to fight much better than expected along with the blunders of the Israelis military, it can be argued that things are worse off for the Israelis than if they had agreed to a cease fire 4 weeks ago. The Israeli military machine does not seem as invincible to the Arabs now as before. This can only encourage more confrontation attempts by Hezbollah, Hamas and possibly the Iranians in the future.

In terms of the peacekeeping force it will be interesting who will actually show up. The French are sending troops but not in great numbers. Some of the nations willing to send significant numbers include Bagadesh, Indonesia and Malaysia. These are Muslim nations which the Israelis don't want. Turkey is an acceptable Muslim nation but they will want some reward later, perhaps against the Kurds in Turkey who want to form an independent country. Also it will be ironic that the sons of the Ottoman empire which dominated this region will be back! The Lebanese troops will not be much use and won't disarm Hezbollah. So the peackeeping effort won't be sufficient. The only good thing is that Hezbollah wants to regroup as it already achieved most what it wanted. So I don't think there will be restart of the war in the near future. But given time, I predict Lebanon will be a battle ground again.

It is now over three weeks since the battle in Lebanon started. There is still no ending in sight. Even if the U.N. gets a resolution at the end of this week, it will be weeks before an U.N. force can be assembled to do the job of keeping peace. In the meanwhile, Israel is increasing her ground attack with the intention of destroying as much of Hezbollah's force before the truce come. I think Israel can achieve some of her military objective, but as I said before, whatever the outcome, it will not make Israel safer based on her actions in this conflict.

The bombing at Qana was a disaster. This was almost a repeat of what happened 10 years ago. This is exactly the type of situation that Israel was guaranteed to get into when she refused to have a cease fire shortly after retaliating against Hezbollah. As precise this type of bombing is supposed to be, mistakes are unavoidable. The bombing of Qana should have been avoided, however. When a decision is to bomb a target, one must consider the risk and benefit ratio of the attack. Israel claimed that Hezbollah was firing rockets from the target area. So the benefit, if the intelligence is correct, would be to wipe out couple of rocket launchers. The risk is that there are great civilian casualties in a very symbolic site from 10 years ago. If I am in charge of deciding where to bomb, I would not take Qana unless I see lots of enemies and weapons sitting in an open field. Israel says she regrets the incidence and will investigate how the mistake occured. This is of course what she always say when an unintended target is hit. Some ambulances and an U.N. building were hit the week before. There is still no explanation how such mistakes occured. If an ambulance with a large red cross and a building occupied by the U.N. for years can be mistakenly blown up, why would anyone think that air strikes are precise?

Even the U.S. were upset by the bombing at Qana and tried to pull Israel back by coercing Israel into stop bombing for 48 hours. Israel did not comply with the wishes of the U.S. Pundits have continue to make the point that Hezbollah is responsible for the civilian deaths by hiding among the populace. Mort Zuckerman said that if someone robs a bank and hold hostages, then if anyone dies in the stand off, the robber is responsible for murder according to our laws. Pat Buchanan responded by saying that in that case, he doesn't think the police will bomb the bank to catch the robbers. If Israel is really the good guy, then act like a good guy. I don't expect the Israelis to turn the other cheek, I couldn't do it if I am in their shoes. Eye for an eye is fair. But gouging the eyes of 10 innocents to revenge one eye is excessive even to me. Can you imagine what the Arabs think about that? If you are a Lebanese child and your home is lost and you are a refugee today, do you grow up hating Hezbollah, who started this, or do you hate Israel who bombed out your house? This Lebanese child maybe tommorrow's terrorist.

Almost another week has gone by and the Middle East looks the same except with more destructions in Lebanon and Israel. Don't forget Gaza and of course Iraq. The only good news for Bush is the conflict in Lebanon has pushed Iraq to the back page. Does anyone notice the disaster that is happening in Iraq? Each week it has been worse than the one before and more troops will be going there with more U.S. soldiers going out on the streets to try to stop the sectarian violence. Nobody seems to notice this as everyone is focused on Lebanon.

So what is the Bush administration doing about Lebanon? Rice made her rounds but says nothing except to decline to have a cease fire until some permanent solution can be found. In other words we'll let Israel beat up Hezbollah to her satifaction before we call a cease fire. In other words our diplomatic effort will depend on Israel's military effort. As I said before, Israel may win the war but will give birth to more terrorists each day she is destroying Lebanon. Also Israel painted herself into a corner by vowing to destroy Hezbollah. This looks like will take longer than expected. Hezbollah, on the other hand, can claim victory by simply surviving. So if Israel destroys 80% of Hezbollah and then call for a cease fire, we are no better off than if we had called for a cease fire right now. So it is not in the interests of the U.S. to let Israel keep on fighting. We should act in our best intersts just as Iran and Syria would rein in Hezbollah if it is in their best interests to do so.

This brings to what we should do in the future. With countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt all condeming Hezbollah and fearing the power of Iran, this gives the U.S. an opportunity to break up the radicals. Iran and Syria are the supporters of Hamas as well as Hezbollah. If we can break these two apart and leave the other one isolated we may have a chance for an Arab-Israel peace. As I have said, this peace is absolutely necessary if we are to defeat terrorism. This is what Bush should have concentrated on, not going into Iraq. He has a second chance now.

It won't be easy but I think it is possible to get Syria away from Iran. The Iranians are Persians and they tend to look down on Arabs. They are also Shiites and the Syrians are predominantly Sunnis as are the Jordanians who are U.S. allies. Israel and the U.S. also have a negotiating chip, the Golan Heights. The return of the Sinai to Egypt was the key for peace there. Israel eventually will give back the Golan Heights anyways and this is as good as any time to negotiate. The leader of Syria, Assad, is not a religious fanatic like the president of Iran. (can't spell his name) Assad is a British trained physician and I think he would like his country develop economically as King Abdullah is trying to do in Jordan. The only problem is that he is not the strong man his father was so he cannot make peace with Israel without risking his life. Also Israel cannot come out and say she will give up the Golan Heights, so the U.S. will have to use our diplomatic channels to convey the desire.

Of course some will say that Syria was the one to tell Hezbollah to attack so Syria can get back into Lebanon and Assad will not negotiate seriously with Israel. Also some will point out that after the Israelis left Gaza, Hamas attacked Israel. Sure all this maybe true but not trying to break the bad guys up will be an opportunity lost. Even if Israel had not left Gaza, Hamas would cause trouble anyways. And it would be obvious that if there is a possiblity of peace, the bad guys will try to stop the process. You just have to keep doing the right thing and maybe someday the goal will be achieved. If Syria decides to make peace, it will be automatic that Iran will cause big trouble. But if you don't try to make peace with Syria, you know that Iran will cause trouble anyways but will also be helped by Syria. Right now most of the Arab countries are condemning Hezbollah and they are afraid of Iran getting stronger. Now is the time to try to get the Syrians to join their Arab brothers.